We headed north from Dorking, pursued by touring RF 4, which was heading for Denbies Vineyard. The RF spent most of the day on its designed tour duties, but did have some bus work in the form of the first and last clockwise trips round the 439 loop.
RT113 rumbled up to Burford Bridge, and climbed over the flank of Box Hill to Mickleham, where we were held up by badly parked cars. Back on the main road we continued to Leatherhead, and headed north-east to Epsom. There we had a few minutes photography time, recollecting the old days of the 93 route at Epsom clock tower.
While I was there my phone rang. Where was I? RF679 was going to head home as soon as possible, the unloader valve behaving well enough for travel but not for service. I promised to get back to Dorking as quickly as possible. That was on RT113 of course. The crew had already decided to give the horrors of Mickleham a miss, so it was a speedy (but enjoyable) return trip to Dorking.
Back at Dorking I located RF679, with Colin Rivers and Mike Dawes.
They had spent the day trying to sort the air valves on the bus,
and with pressure holding high enough to give us brakes and gears for the journey home were keen to set off. The designated return duties to Redhill, Westerham and Sevenoaks were to be covered by another RF,
so off we went, trundling eastwards along the A25 into Kent.
We made it safely, and RF679 was tucked away safely with sister RF603, awaiting a season of maintenance ready for next year.
My thanks go to the Country Bus Rallies team for organising the event,
involving arranging with owners of buses, scheduling, arranging the venue, making agreements with operators, organising catering, stalls and toilets, all with enough flexibility to cope with the problems that crop up on the day.
My thanks also to the bus owners and crews, for the opportunity to ride and photograph their vehicles. It was a good day.
visitors:
STL2377, Q83, RF19, RMC1476, AV251
on Route 70D: RM9
on route 32: RF315, BL93
All photos by Ian Smith. Click on most of them for a larger picture.
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